"I deserved to die."
"The weight of all my mistakes, all those lives and souls lost, I… I couldn't take it either."
"If I see what Heaven's become— what I— what I made of it… I'm afraid I might kill myself."
"I can't fail, not on this one."
His breath hitched in his throat. He couldn't breathe. His heart pounded wildly in his chest and his skin felt like it was on fire even as some kind of cold, numb feeling swept over him. A fine tremor started in his hands, growing deeper and moving throughout him until his whole body was shaking. Tears pinpricked his eyes and his legs gave out from under him as he watched his brothers and sisters being torn from their home and cast out unto the earth.
His ears were ringing, the sound from the rest of the world hollowed out and absent, but he could still hear them screaming in his head. His grace had been taken—stolen—from him, but he was still an angel and he could still hear them all screaming in his head. Crying out in confusion. In fear. In pain. As their wings were ripped, burned away from their bodies. As they fell, in every sense of the word.
Because of him.
Even as tears blurred his vision to the point where he could barely see what was happening, he still couldn't tear his eyes away from the utter devastation that was happening all around him. That he had caused.
It was too much. It was too much.
There was no real thought to what he did next. It was like he was far away, removed from himself, watching as someone else pulled a blade out of their coat sleeve. Watching as someone else took the blade in both hands and drove it into their stomach over and over again. It was someone else's pain, dull, despite the severity of the injuries.
But then the blade was too slippery to hold and his hands were too weak to grip it and he was back in himself. The blade fell out of his hands onto the ground next to him. He collapsed backwards, hands pressed to the ruin of his stomach and chest. The pain was his, no longer dull, and it threatened to choke him. Or maybe it was the tears from when he couldn't stop them from flowing. Or the literal blood welling up in his throat. Or the knowledge, the terrible weight of what he had done, what he had helped to do, even unknowingly.
He closed his eyes and waited for everything to stop.
Fingers brushed over his forehead, threaded through his hair. He struggled to open his eyes before finally managing to. Metatron knelt over him. He tried to jerk away, but he was too weak from blood loss and the movement was sluggish and ineffective. He opened his mouth to protest but the only thing that came out was blood. Metatron tutted disapprovingly.
"Castiel, I didn't give you this wonderful opportunity just for you to go and waste it. Besides, suicide is a sin and you're never going to get back into Heaven like this."
Metatron removed his hands from his stomach and replaced them with his own. He opened his mouth to protest again—he didn't want to live to go back to heaven he didn't deserve—
He blinked. He blinked again. His clothes were no longer sticky and wet and red with his blood. His body was undamaged. The ground beneath him was dry. The sky was dark and empty. Dark, and full of stars and the moon, but empty of his brothers and sisters falling. His head was empty of their cries as well. He was alone.
It felt like a long time had passed.
He could feel the weight of his blade pressed against his arm, hidden up his coat sleeve like he had never taken it out at all. The grief he felt for his family and the overwhelming guilt was still there although further away, like parts of it had literally bled out of him while he was dying, but it was still there. He wanted to take the blade out again.
He stared up at the dark, empty sky. He stood up.
He started walking. There was no point.
He couldn't die.